Rock News Today march 20

Black Crowes: A Rock Hall Nomination Worth Celebrating

Chris Robinson and Rich Robinson always served as the creative center for the Black Crowes. Good thing, because they're the only members of the current lineup who appear on 2026's ballot for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Eligible for a quiet decade, the Black Crowes have now been nominated for two straight years. The other band honorees would include early guitarist Jeff Cease (1989-91), classic-era bassist Johnny Colt (1989–1997), two-stint guitarist Marc Ford (1991-97, 2005-06), long-serving drummer Steve Gorman (1989-2002, 2005-15) and the late keyboardist Eddie Harsch 1992-2002, 2005-06).

Gorman is by far the best-known of former Black Crowes members, but his split with the group was also the most acrimonious. It's unclear if he'd join the Robinson brothers at a future induction ceremony. Following the Black Crowes' nomination, Chris Robinson would only say that making amends would have to take place "down the road."

Black Crowes' Late-Career Resurgence Bolsters Their Resume

The Black Crowes mounted their second reunion in 2019 without Gorman, just as he prepared to release a tell-all autobiography titled Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes – A Memoir. He later sued the Robinsons for unpaid back royalties; the lawsuit was settled without revealing terms. Chris and Rich Robinson moved forward with impressive late-career creative momentum.

The recently released Pound of Feathers marks the second new album in three years from the resurgent Black Crowes, who've also issued an EP of cool covers and a live recording celebrating their debut album. The new music only bolsters a sturdy Rock Hall resume that includes almost eight million albums sold in the U.S. alone. Here are five reasons why the second time should be the charm for the Black Crowes:

No. 1. The Black Crowes Steered Rock Back to an Earlier, Grimier Era

Nirvana tends to get the lion's share of the credit for pulling rock back from the brink of hair-band irrelevancy, but the Black Crowes had already laid the groundwork with 1990's five-times-platinum Shake Your Money Maker. (Guns N' Roses would like a word, as well.) This was grimy, groove rock in the style of the Rolling Stones, the Faces and Aerosmith, but with its own redneck dive-bar swagger.

In an era when even Heart had capitulated to the power ballad trend with "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You," the rootsy dope-sick ballad "She Talks to Angels" was a throwback in the very best sense of the word. Over the course of a rangy, organic discography highlighted by 1992's chart-topping Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, they put the classic back into classic rock.

No. 2. The Black Crowes Overcame Long Odds (And Their Own Drama)

Their original incarnation, as the Atlanta-based Mr. Crowe's Garden, was a jangly knock-off of their childhood heroes, R.E.M. Their early business relationship with Def American's Rick Rubin quickly soured. (He'd begun by suggesting they change their band name to Kobb Kounty Krowes. Rubin was politely turned down.) Their first album was more commercial than critical success.

Some stores refused to carry 1994's Amorica because they used a racy image from a 1976 edition of Hustler on the cover. Before their 2019 reunion, incessant fighting between the Robinson brothers led to two earlier breakups. But Amorica became a gold-selling hit that almost cracked the Top 10 anyway. They notched six No. 1 songs on Billboard rock charts. Eight of the Black Crowes' 11 LPs have reached the Top 20.

No. 3. Their Career Was Also a Celebration of Music's Storied Past

The Black Crowes tie together so many ageless musical threads, from rock and jam bands to glam and R&B. Their choice of cover songs and collaborators underscore the point. The group initially stormed to fame with their greasy update of Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" from Shake Your Money Maker. They explored a number of Led Zeppelin tracks on 2000's Live at the Greek, recorded with Jimmy Page.

The Black Crowes' 1972 comeback EP included an intriguing blend of cover songs from that year by David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, T. Rex, Rod Stewart, Little Feat and the Temptations. "The cool thing about it to me," Rich Robinson told Rolling Stone, "is how broad the spectrum of music was – and how it was all on the same radio station." Same with the Black Crowes.

No. 4. The Black Crowes Never Sold Out (But Sometimes Paid the Price)

Chris Robinson went on a tirade aimed at corporate interests in rock during an early opening spot on a ZZ Top tour ... sponsored by the Miller Beer corporation. "Miller said, 'You don't say that, and if you do, we'll throw you off the tour,'" Rich Robinson later told Q magazine. "We said, 'Hey, we don't have a contract with you. We thought we were going on tour with ZZ. If you wanna throw us off, throw us off.'" They did.

The group left Rick Rubin's label after 1996's Top 20 hit Three Snakes and One Charm, but then took three of their next four LPs right back to the Top 20 on their own indie imprint. Echoing his early anti-establishment attitude, Chris Robinson also once said he'd decline Rock Hall induction after describing a visit to the museum as "like going to the mall." He changed his tune after two nominations in a row.

No. 5. In a Rarity, They'll Give the Rock Hall a Feel-Good Story

Before, you'd have expected another disappointing partial Rock & Roll Hall of Fame reunion if the bickering Black Crowes were to be honored. Who can forget Paul McCartney's absence when the Beatles were inducted? Roger Waters wasn't there for Pink Floyd's big night. Neither was Jerry Garcia, Mark Knopfler and Levon Helm when the Grateful Dead, Dire Straits and the Band respectively joined the Rock Hall. Van Halen was only represented by original bassist Michael Anthony and second frontman Sammy Hagar.

Meanwhile, the Black Crowes were once so famous for perpetually feuding that they actually played a month-long called Tour of Brotherly Love in May and June 2001 with the similarly fractious siblings in Oasis and Spacehog. But after splitting in 2002 and again in 2015 following 10 years back together, the brothers at the heart of the Black Crowes have mended their sometimes contentious relationship. Both Robinsons would surely now appear together at the induction, a sight that could hardly have been imagined before.

Read Full Article at Ultimate Classic Rock

"I threw my guitar off, dove into the crowd, and began strangling him to the ground. I remember the look of terror in his eyes." The night that Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan met his future bandmate, and future Hole bassist, Melissa Auf der Maur

On July 23, 1991, Smashing Pumpkins played a small Montreal club called Les Foufounes Électriques ('The Electric Buttocks') as part of a North American tour in support of their recently-released debut album Gish. Although the price of admission on the night was just one Canadian dollar, as per the club's weekly 'Loonie Tuesdays' promotion, there were only around 20 people in attendance for what was the quartet's first gig in the city.

Nineteen-year-old Melissa Auf der Maur, a photography student at Montreal's Concordia University, worked part-time as a ticket girl at the venue, and had noticed a Sub Pop logo on the flyer for the show, the Seattle label having released Smashing Pumpkins' second single Tristessa in December 1990. Although she'd never heard of the Chicago band, she figured that any band on the label who'd released records by Mudhoney, Nirvana and Soundgarden could be worth checking out, particularly since she could get into the show for free. As the gig began, Auf der Maur loved what she heard from the "slick, romantic, magnificent" band on stage, but her room-mate's boyfriend Bruce, who'd tagged along, increasingly hated what he was seeing, and made no secret of his distaste for Billy Corgan and his band.

"Halfway through the show Bruce, who was watching next to me, was like, 'What the fuck is wrong with these guys?'" Auf der Maur recalls in a new interview conducted for Corgan's The Magnificent Others podcast. "He was like, 'They're so full of shit. They're not playing an arena, they're playing a punk club, why are they acting like this?' And I'm like, This is amazing!"

"So then he started heckling you," she reminds Corgan. "He was screaming, 'Drop the fucking attitude asshole! Drop the fucking attitude!' And I was like, Why are you doing this to these people? You had been tuning your guitar, and said, 'I'm just tuning my fucking guitar, asshole'. And then you started a song, and he threw a beer bottle."

"I was looking intently at my guitar, and as I was playing, a beer bottle smashed against my guitar," Corgan remembers. "I don't think it broke, but the beer kind of splattered. And I immediately kind of whirled up to see who threw the bottle. There's only 20 people out there, and usually when that happens, people aren't in a big hurry to let you know who threw the bottle, it just the way the crowds work. But for whatever reason, when I gave the death glare, the people around your room-mate seemed to kinda like [mimes moving away] 'Not me', and as soon as I saw the body language of people going away from Bruce...

"I threw my guitar off mid-strum," Corgan continues, "dove into the crowd, and began strangling him to the ground. And I just remember the look of terror in his eyes, because he didn't seem to want to fight, even though he had just thrown a beer bottle at me. We also had a rule in the band which is, No matter what happens, keep playing, so even though I'm in the crowd choking Bruce to the ground... [and] Bruce sort of submitted to the moment. So I was done choking, I had made my point. So then I got back on stage, picked up my guitar, and finished the song."

"That is when you captured my heart," says Auf der Maur with a smile.

At the end of the show, she recalls walking up to Corgan to say, "On behalf of Montreal, Canada, I apologise, and I promise to follow your band from here ’til the end of time."

Not only that, but having been invited to join Hole on Corgan's recommendation in 1994, Auf der Maur later accepted Corgan's invitation to become Smashing Pumpkins' bassist in 1999.

You can watch the rest of a fascinating conversations between the two old friends below.

Melissa Auf der Maur will release her "90s rock memoir" Even the Good Girls Will Cry via Atlantic Books on March 19.

A synopsis for the book reads: "Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a fan letter to a P.O. box, Melissa Auf der Maur’s first band scored an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins in her bohemian home town, Montreal. Sensing Melissa’s talent, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love. Whisked from her local scene, Melissa joined Hole just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and Hole’s prior bassist, Kristen Pfaff, with the just-widowed Courtney Love at the centre of it all.

"That was only the beginning of Melissa’s journey through alternative rock, a trip she undertook alongside 90s luminaries including Rufus Wainwright, Michael Stipe and her former boyfriend, Dave Grohl. Even the Good Girls Will Cry is a vivid dispatch from the last analogue decade, capturing that bygone era in all its messy, angsty glory."

Read Full Article at Louder